Scavengers Box Set

by Sam J Fires

  Shortly before arriving at his father’s house, he made his way to a petrol station and neatened himself up. He slid on a fresh pair of blue jeans and a check shirt which his mother was always told him made him look like his father. This was sometimes a compliment, but mostly an insult.

  He tried styling his hair just like his father’s that he’d seen in an old photograph of him at the same age. When he was satisfied with his appearance, he made his way to his father’s place of residence. As he arrived, he took a deep breath before making his way down the driveway.

  He had imagined that day for many years, it was a fantasy that had kept him sane.

  He knocked nervously, the sound more like muffled scratches. Nothing. No response or even any stirring of activity. So he knocked again. These knocks were equally as nervous but much louder, intrusive and possibly even offensive. Not too dissimilar to the urgent knock of a police officer wanting to get your attention fast.

  The door was opened with an abrupt annoyance by a girl not much younger than Adam.

  ‘Who is she?’ He stood staring at the young girl. She looked at him for a few seconds and then said loudly “Yes?”

  Another voice from inside the house called, “who is it honey?” To which the girl shouted back, “Some weird kid. I think there’s something wrong with him.”

  A woman with a kind face came to the door and looked down at Adam inquisitively before catching her breath and gasping audibly. Adam’s father had told his new wife that he had been married before but not that he had another child. She was mortified more by the deception than by the child. In fact, she was quite nice to Adam and let him stay the night.

  He had hoped that they would invite him to move in with them, to be a part of the family and he felt she was on the brink of offering this to him but for his father. The next day his father took him back to his mother who, of course, put on a great show, a spectacle, a performance; weeping in the street, kissing her son, saying how worried she was even though in reality she had probably not even noticed that he’d been gone.

  For the next three years his father was a regular fixture in his life. Monica was the best stepmother he could have hoped for and he got along famously with his sister Grace. They adored Adam. They found his sensitivity and creativity moving – beneath his pain or perhaps because of it, Adam was extremely artistic. He painted, sculpted, wrote poetry and Monica and Grace basked in his creativity.

  This continued for a while but then Adam’s mother began to intrude and inject her venom into her ex-husband’s life through Adam. This venom eventually started to reach Monica and Grace.

  His mother was as toxic as they came. She would call Monica at all hours, even at her place of work. She harassed Monica as though she owed her something. She would accuse her of homewrecking, of stealing her husband. His mother would load him into the car and drive all the way to their house at the oddest hours and drop him off without warning. Adam’s mother made an all-round nuisance of herself, and of Adam by extension.

  This continued until one day Adam overheard Monica and his father fighting terribly about the situation. He went home the next day and never returned.

  Monica and Grace both reached out to him several times, begging him to visit, to move in, to go on holiday with them but Adam ignored their messages and calls. Wherever he went, so too would his mother’s poison.

  He withdrew increasingly at school. He also created multiple profiles across various social media platforms, including that of a family through which he fantasized about a life that would never be his. A family with whom he apparently went on holidays, tagged in posts and even wrote loving messages on their walls.

  Chapter 3

  The Big Reveal

  A lly had grown accustomed to seeing Bryan daily and, truth be told, so too had Bryan. It was a part of the day that he looked forward to just as much as she. With Ally, Bryan was able to divulge those machinations at the heart of his being and not fear a cold reception. As ethical as Ally was, she was calculating and rational too. More importantly, Ally recognized that everything was ultimately ‘human. All too human’.

  Bryan remembered the day that Ally arrived at their compound, a day that altered the course of human history forever. Adam had received a report from some of the men on guard that some ‘crazy woman or spy’ had shown up at their gates asking for books. At hearing this, Bryan felt the little pang of anxious dread he sometimes felt in the face of something unexpected which could prove to be potentially dangerous.

  “Please show her to the drawing room, Adam, and close the door behind you. I will let you know what happens next,” Bryan had ordered.

  Once Adam had left, Bryan pulled out his grandfather’s pipe and began to chew at its stem. The psychologist’s own nervous habit.

  They had been planning something seismic for a long while and the timing of this woman’s appearance seemed too coincidental. Bryan bit at the old wooden stem of the pipe as though he were gnawing at his own nerves. His right arm tingled with that dull sensation again. He switched on the old monitor which rested on top of his equally old desk. Everything around Bryan seemed old but that was not by choice but merely a coincidence. The old monitor came alive displaying a split screen. He focused his attention upon the young woman in the drawing room and sat watching her for a while, pondering deeply before calling out, “Adam, I’d like to meet her now.”

  The proposal he had made to her initially wasn’t completely genuine. The FF communes were always in need of more quality teachers, but Bryan’s true motivation was to keep her as close as possible but without imprisoning her. At first, he met with her every day to fish for information, to learn about her character and her motivations. But with every meeting Bryan was more won over by her sincerity and his old habit of needing to counsel returned, wanting to help her through the pain that had nearly brought her to her knees. The more he therapized her, the more she healed in the little island that shielded her from the tides of the rest of the world. The more she healed, the more she trusted him and the more she bought into the cause.

  What had begun as an intelligence collecting operation for Bryan had become a truly human engagement. Ally had awoken in Bryan paternal feelings that were more acute than his usually more general desire to comfort all of mankind. If mankind was a concept, Ally was it. A concrete blood and bones representation for Bryan.

  His hero complex had sublimated and turned him into a warm, caring father figure. Each day when Ally left, he often found himself worrying about her safety, he found himself regretting never marrying and having his own children. The moral apprehensiveness he felt about the FF’s final act diminished. He knew that if anything justified what he planned to do, it was for people like Ally to have the opportunity to be human again.

  So, later that day that was not particularly different from any other, he looked Ally directly in the eyes and asked, “Do you know what all of this is for, Alexandra?”

  She smiled. “A place for those of us who have become the cockroaches of the quantum world to rediscover our humanity.”

  Bryan chuckled. “In some ways yes, but there’s more to this.”

  Ally looked puzzled.

  Bryan continued. “Do you not think it odd that every major city everywhere has an FF commune? And even smaller localities without FF communes have FF chapters. Don’t you find that strange?”

  Ally was dumbfounded. She had never thought about any of this before but now that he had mentioned it, it did seem a bit strange at how quickly the communes and chapters had spread globally, and so quickly.

  Bryan, watching the cogs of her churning mind crease her brow, grinned and spoke again in a more steady and authoritative tone.

  “A long time ago, before Google announced that it had achieved Quantum supremacy, as you know, I was a psychologist and motivational speaker. I wrote a book on the despair of the dawn of the technological era. As I thought this book had garnered little attention, I persisted in other projects.” He looked
deeply at Ally again before continuing. “What I didn’t know was that my book which had been a commercial flop, had made its way to the upper reaches of government and had been circulating there for quite a while”.

  “I was becoming an international sensation on the public speaking front, publishing book after book and going on tour after tour. The more I was circulating, the more my books were circulating and shortly I was contacted to join an elite group of professionals.”

  Bryan looked up and sighed deeply. “The group comprised of numerous specialists in various fields including applied physics, biological sciences, economics and much more. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why I had been included in this collective. I knew nothing of game theory or anything like that. Our purpose as a group was to consult on matters of both national and international security. Some of our work was published but most of it remained largely secret.”

  Ally was staring at Bryan with intensity as he told her something that felt of such great importance and urgency that she worried that even blinking would cause her to miss something.

  The atmosphere was positively combustible. “We consulted on many things from chemical and biological warfare to nuclear proliferation and even on far out matters such as mind control.”

  Bryan paused for a few seconds as he realized that Ally needed to take some time to absorb what he was telling her. Then he continued.

  “ Around about the time that Google announced that it had achieved quantum supremacy, while you were no doubt a little child Alexandra, we foresaw some of the dangers that would come from this, from internet security to socio-economic inequalities on a societal level. My colleagues were able to develop constructive ways of mitigating most of these problems, but the overriding concern rested with the thesis of my book. In this quantum society, the rich would naturally quell themselves with greater and greater acts of hedonism but what would happen to the poor? Where would they go? What would stop them from ‘eating the rich’?”

  Bryan grew more somber as he spoke. “I was tasked to lead the initiative on devising a solution. Once the quantum cat was out of the bag, so to speak, no state was willing to turn back for being left behind. So the pressure was placed on my shoulders and my answer was simply ‘choice’.”

  Ally, astute as always, began to grasp the trajectory of the conversation and trembled. Bryan closed his eyes slowly and went on with his tale.

  “We decided that in order to sustain the stability of the quantum civilization we needed a counterweight. We created the FF propaganda and began to disseminate it at targeted locations to targeted sub-groups. We controlled and directed the media narrative in order to tell people what they should be thinking. We created the first communes from secret military compounds built across the country and constructed to withstand nuclear fallout, bio-chemical warfare and other types of terror attacks. The communes were never truly meant to house all of mankind but merely to exist in the minds of people as a possible escape if the quantum world expelled them”.

  “We never expected many people to come and we were right, but having these centers, these ideas contrasting with the norm, was a means of sustaining that norm. The illusion of choice.”

  Ally was pale and petrified, looking at Bryan in utter disbelief.

  “Do you really think an operation so much at odds with the quantum world could exist without consent, Alexandra?”

  Ally gasped audibly and Bryan spoke again. “Our model proved successful. We manufactured the ‘Miller incident’ to export the idea into the international consciousness and people bought into it. FF communes were suddenly an international norm, a given, without anyone ever considering how they came about and the logistics entailed in opening such compounds globally. They were just accepted.”

  Ally spoke up for the first time, whispering in a hoarse voice. “I don’t believe it. Barbara Miller? The Friends of Freedom? None…none of it was real?”

  Bryan looked down like a guilty schoolboy. “The terror attacks, Miller, none of that was real but the philosophy, the desire to save mankind, that was very real.”

  Ally couldn’t believe the hypocrisy of it all and stood up aggressively, looking at Bryan as though she might throw something at him.

  “Alexandra,’ he pleaded. ‘Wait, just wait. There’s more.”

  “More?” she yelled.

  Bryan responded gently, beseeching her to remain. “Yes. The FF communes were a success and shortly after the quantum era really got on its way some of us began to believe in the philosophy of the FF with greater vehemence. The advisory clutch of professionals had by this time disbanded and had long since been forgotten, but we never forgot each other, and we began to plan.”

  Ally was startled. All of this was too much to digest but she forced herself to focus.

  Bryan continued. “It’s not possible to dismantle the internet. It could survive even a nuclear war, but we knew that this unhealthy world could not persist, so we decided to eradicate it from the root.”

  Ally was overcome by fear of what was next to come.

  “Since we cannot destroy artificial intelligence, quantum computers nor the other hubris at the heart of this era, we decided……..” and Bryan had to take a few breathes to calm his nervousness, and then he continued “We decided to destroy the people, and in so doing save humanity.”

  Ally felt her head grow light as though she might faint.

  “Alexandra, are you okay?” Bryan asked and Ally just sat quietly, staring off at nothing in particular.

  They sat for almost an hour in silence when Ally finally asked, “How will you do it?”

  Bryan answered. “Long ago when we consulted, some of the threats we prepared for included biological warfare. These FF compounds were initially military compounds and were built to withstand such attacks and we have maintained their capacity to do so.”

  Ally was quiet again, processing it all and then asked, “Where would you even get a biological weapon and how would you spread it? People are more disconnected now than ever. Even schools are taught virtually.”

  Bryan breathed in deeply before responding. “One of the founding fathers of these communes was a specialist in ‘Black Biology’ and once we had determined to bring the quantum world down, he fashioned a designer microorganism genetically engineered to wipe out almost anybody infected with it. My colleague, the late Dr. Schwartz, specifically tailored this microorganism to have a long incubation period with little to no symptoms, but it will be highly infectious and have a high mortality rate.”

  Ally looked as though she might be sick but sat quietly. Bryan continued. “Some people out there will be naturally immune, but most will perish, after which time we will emerge and administer the new world. We will then physically take the quantum world apart and build a new, healthier world.”

  Ally asked again. “How will you get the people close enough to spread this globally?”

  “We will infect the plumbers, the electricians, the tradesmen on the street who walk amongst each other and into each and every house and we will infect them from every commune globally within a week from now. We have planned this for a long time and have already distributed the pathogen far and wide.”

  Ally began to weep quietly, Bryan reached out to hold her hands tightly, his own hands tingling.

  Chapter 4

  Keep Your Wits About You

  I don’t expect anything, but I hope that my little plan will work, and that the bedsheet tied to the javelin and satchel straps will serve as a parachute or maybe even a glider.

  As I take my leap of faith, even though the wind is relatively calm, the sheet immediately fills with air, forming a bubble like a hot air balloon above me. The javelin pulls up right against the strap of the satchel as though it will rip free and fly away of its own.

  Relief and exhilaration course through my body. I’m going to get away. The satchel and bedsheet haven’t acted like a glider, I’m still falling but it does function as a parachute of sorts.
I continue to descend the wall for a little while longer then at about halfway down I hear a cracking, lightening-like sound. I look up to see the point where Olly and I had previously patched the sheet begin to tear open again. My descent becomes more tumultuous and the tear begins to rip open faster. The perforation continues to tear and the hole grows even larger. I’m about halfway down the wall now and the parachute gives way completely, sending me into a fall. I’m suddenly no more than arms and legs spiraling in the air, a cacophony of chaos rushing to the ground.

  I hit the ground hard on my left side. All the air is knocked out of me and I cough and gasp, rolling onto my right side. I’ve never felt a pain like this before, like ice stabbing into my left shoulder and shooting little shards of frost down my back and limbs. My eyesight is becoming blurry but not as though I’m about to pass out. Instead it’s as though the pain radiating throughout my shoulder is interrupting my brain’s ability to interpret visual stimulus.

  There’s no time for this. I know the sharks will be down upon me soon. This is a fight or flight moment and my adrenalin kicks in. I’m able to swallow down the icy pain in my shoulder and force it back into the deeper recesses of my mind.

  With the sense of pain arrested, I force myself to my feet.

  Dozens of sharks have now mounted the imposing wall and are all looking down at me. Luckily the Heap Gate isn’t anywhere near this point of the wall. This was a deliberate decision of mine and Olly’s so that if things ever went pear-shaped, as they have, the sharks wouldn’t be able to come rushing out to waylay us all at once.

  I stare up at the sharks a few seconds longer, then one of the them lowers himself and begins to climb down the outer part of the wall. The others follow suit.

  I watch in utter disbelief and can’t understand them climbing up the wall on the inside. There are many points of traction for them to grasp, but the side of the wall where I stand, on the outer side of the wall, is as smooth as glass.